George Takei's Take on Facebook Promoted Posts

courtesy http://www.facebook.com/georgehtakei

Who knew social ads could cause this much controversy? (Cough, Sarcasm…)

Yesterday George Takei posted a mini-rant on the new Facebook ad offering called Promoted Posts, where a brand can pay to get a status update in front of all the page’s followers.
Many others have expressed their dismay over this new feature. The truth is that there is virtually no way for every follower to see every single post a brand publishes. Unless the follower lives in a cave with really good wifi and does absolutely nothing in the real world.
Timing, influence, whether the post is interesting, and many other factors come into play here. Facebook’s Edgerank helps to filter out the uninteresting stuff from your feed based on your own interactions on the social net; so that real time posts are published that you want to see the most.
Honestly, promoted posts are actually going to help the brand. Takei should have no problem getting his message out. His social content is engaging and entertaining. The two most important components to a successful social persona. Ad campaigns are just a small part of this equation. An important part, but not the whole.
And being able to see your percent of reach on each Facebook brand page post? I think this is extremely helpful, even though others are crying fowl. “It’s just a way to sell more of these new ads” they say. Truth is, that engagement number hasn’t changed. Your page engagement was probably always at 2%. It’s just now you can see that low number and it should motivate you to come up with more interesting content.
True Media has already implemented Promoted Posts campaigns for our clients, and the CTR and engagement rates on them have been phenomenal. Twitter has been promoting organic content for quite a while, so why all the fuss?
Learn more about promoted posts here. What’s your opinion? Please let us know in the comments below.